UPDATE: A friend points out that the NYeT is busy trying to spin the fact that some U.S. oil companies and individuals took Oil For Food vouchers as proof that the French aren't evil after all. Here's a comment from Roger's blog that holds an X-ray to NYeT's Kerry elves:
Simply laughable, and also totally predictable. When NPR deigned to mention this story Thursday, whom do they interview? France;s ambassador to the US. What's Ambassador Levitte's line? "The suggestion that France was bribed is outrageous! There were Americans who took vouchers as well!" What's the NYT angle today? There were Americans who took vouchers as well!Nah. Just another day at the NYeT.
EARTH TO BILL KELLER: The whole point of the Oil For Fraud scandal is that French and Russian government policy toward Saddam was motivated by a desire for massive economic rewards, both via sweetheart deals for their "national champion" oil companies (TotalFinaElf's W Qurna deal, most egregiously) and for Chirac and Putin's personal associates. And these deals were in violation of the sanctions that Chirac and Putin's governments, as UNSC members, were pledged to uphold! This is fraud, money-laundering, sanctions-breaking and influence-peddling by the governments of France and Russia.
As to the US oil majors receiving vouchers: so what? As I've pointed out a hundred times, every oil company on the planet was in favor of ending sanctions because they wanted to do business with Saddam. XOM, ChevTex, ConocoPhilips: all of them were on record as urging Congress to lift sanctions. This indeed was "blood for oil": the blood of Saddam's victims in exchange for lucrative oil deals for the oil majors.
This was the OPPOSITE of what the US government, both under Clinton and under Bush, favored! The policies advocated by oilmen who couldn't care less about Saddam's slaughterhouse (after all, the oil majors do a vast business with hideous regimes all over the planet) were rejected by Congress.
So the clear, obvious inference is that for the French and Russian governments, commercial considerations outweighed legal and moral obligations. For the US congress and for both the Bush and Clinton administrations, the reverse is true.
Shame on NPR. Shame on Bill Keller and the NYT. This is outrageous, disgusting spin.
Except for David Brooks, of course. I wonder how much longer he'll last before being sent to the reeducation camp?
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